Ah, the good old days. Remember them? The sun shone all summer and children played outside all day long, with no fears for their safety.

Ah, the good old days. Remember them? The sun shone all summer and children played outside all day long, with no fears for their safety.

Except that it didn't really happen quite like that, as the weather records prove. And the fondly remembered sense of safety was based on ignorance.

It's only in comparatively recent times that the costly veil has been lifted. Published memoirs of childhood abuse, highly publicised prosecutions of elderly men and revelations about predatory youth leaders have shown that the good old days were bad old days for a significant minority of children.

How to safeguard children and vulnerable people was a major issue for the General Assembly yesterday. A big problem for the Kirk is that because of stringent safeguards put in place to protect young people, Sunday Schools and youth organisations are finding it much harder to recruit leaders.

One result of this - and the accompanying climate of fear - is that there are fewer youth organisations for youngsters, meaning children are holed up in bedrooms staring at computer screens, or in dodgy internet chatrooms.

The Kirk is working hard at producing an environment which protects children without destroying a system which actually enriches the lives of countless people.